Despite modern advances in snow removal including snow blowers and innumerable snow shovels and vehicle snow brushes, the strenuous work of shoveling and clearing snow from vehicles remains an unavoidable and strenuous task that is not only time-consuming but highly taxing to the human body, even endangering one's life. Recent advances in shovel design, such as lightweight plastic blades and aluminum handles have eased the task of shoveling, lifting, and throwing snow. However, even the combined prior art has done little to facilitate the pushing of a shovel's blade along a surface to be cleared.
Improvements in vehicle snow brushes, including in the form of push type brooms often with extendable and retractable handles, have made the ability to clear heavy snow accumulations from a vehicle easier than with previous arrangements, such as whisk brooms and the like. However, such devices must be designed to be stored in a compact manner inside the vehicle, which imposes limits on their structure and, as a result, their efficiency. As a result, they have typically been limited in their path width and have had poor ergonomic handle designs. The present inventor has appreciated that a more effective design could be realized by removing the requirement for storing the tool in the vehicle.
After a snowfall, a person typically begins by shoveling a path to the vehicle. Once at the vehicle, the first priority normally is to start the vehicle and its heating system to facilitate ice and snow removal. A snow broom can enable a person to access the locks and handles of the vehicle and to prevent snow on the roof and around the door from falling into the vehicle. Unfortunately, the snow broom or other snow removing tool is normally kept inside the snow-covered vehicle. Where the hand tool is not readily available, persons often resort to using his or her hands and forearms or even the shovel for clearing snow, which is inconvenient and can lead to possible damage to the vehicle. Furthermore, because the need for storing and retrieving each tool is inconvenient and time consuming, the present inventor has realized that it would be desirable for a single hand tool to serve both as a snow shovel and as a snow broom.
Even further, it will be noted that there are few tasks more exhausting than clearing snow from brick walkways, flagstone patios, cracked or broken pavement, storm grates, and similarly uneven ground surfaces. As any person who has shoveled snow will be well aware, the sliding of the shovel over an uneven ground surface can be abruptly halted as the forward edge of the shovel blade strikes a crack, bump, or other surface anomaly. The jarring stoppage of shovel progress wastes energy, fatigues and frustrates the user, and cases damage and wear to the shovel blade.